Dusty Springfield was the stage name of Catherine Bernadette O’Brien OBE, an English singer.
She was a major performer of blue-eyed soul, pop, and dramatic ballads with her unique mezzo-soprano voice. French chanson, country music, and jazz were all in her repertoire.
Dusty Springfield parents: Meet Gerard Anthony O’Brien, Catherine Anne O’Brien
On April 16, 1939, in West Hampstead, Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien was born. She was the second child of Irish immigrants Gerard Anthony “OB” O’Brien (1904-1979) and Catherine Anne “Kay” O’Brien (née Ryle; 1900-1974).
Dionysius Patrick O’Brien, Springfield’s older brother, lived from July 2, 1934, to July 27, 2022. He eventually adopted the name Tom Springfield.
Her father was a tax consultant and accountant who had grown up in British India. Her mother was a member of an Irish family that includes several journalists and was originally from Tralee, County Kerry.
Up until the early 1950s, Springfield was raised in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, and afterwards resided in west London’s Ealing. She went to the conventional all-girl school St. Anne’s Convent School in Northfields.
Her family’s problematic tendencies, including her father’s perfectionism and her mother’s sometimes-food-throwing outbursts, disrupted her pleasant middle-class childhood.
